


warmth, and other things he had no word for

by procellous



Series: as an apple tree among the trees of the wood | shiro/matt week [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 14:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: The sunlight coming in through the window caught the gold in his hair, making him nearly glow.





	

The first thing he was aware of was an incredible, burning pain in his right arm. There was something cloth in his mouth: a gag? He tried to move, but even the slightest twitch of a muscle caused excruciating pain. Any further attempts at motion was stopped by the binds on his wrists and ankles. He was flat on his back, helpless, motionless.

A dark, hooded figure appeared before him, the beaklike mask looming in his periphery.

He screamed as the cold metal of the saw broke the skin of his arm.

It was intense, worse than anything he had ever experienced before.

The figure spoke in a soft, slightly hoarse voice. Matt’s voice. “Shh, Shiro, shh, you’re safe. You’re safe.  I’m here. It’s just me. Just Matt… Nobody’s going to hurt you. We’re safe.”

He stopped screaming and instead bit down on the gag. Matt wouldn’t hurt him. He trusted Matt.

The saw started again, and without the sound of his own screams to muffle it, the buzzing was loud enough he worried for his hearing—but Matt was here. Matt wouldn’t hurt him.

Despite his trust in Matt, he still strained against the restraints and away from the saw.

Shiro woke with a start in the back of the classroom. He glanced around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. A science classroom—oh, this was his microbiology class. He must have fallen asleep. 

His attention wasn’t on the teacher, lecturing about—something. Shiro had lost the discussion long before he had fallen asleep and had that nightmare. He was focused entirely on one reddish-brown head in the front.

Matt Holt, genius scientist. He was the most promising student at the Garrison, clearly leaps and bounds beyond everyone else. Anyone who came near him could tell, curiosity and excitement and enthusiasm surrounded him. Just being around him made people want to study.

He was also so cute—he was short, only coming up to Shiro’s shoulder, with big ears and a smile that made his amber eyes scrunch up. And he smiled a _lot_.

While the teacher droned on, Shiro began to doodle in the corners of his notebook. At first it was spaceships and stars, but as he watched Matt discuss the possibility of alien life with the professor the doodling changed to a pair of squiggly little aliens.

Matt was gesturing as he spoke, caught up in the excitement of the moment. Shiro sighed, leaning forward. The sunlight coming in through the window caught the gold in his hair, making him nearly glow. Shiro could watch him forever.

His mind seized on a memory: Matt in the gym, running on a treadmill, a textbook open in front of him. Shiro had gone in to lift weights, and had been granted a perfect view of Matt wearing a sweaty tank top and booty shorts. Matt was all lean muscle, a runner’s physique, and Shiro spent longer than he’d like to admit fantasizing about Matt’s thighs.

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind wander: Matt straddling his chest, pinning his arms above his head and kissing him senseless. It was a more frequent fantasy than he’d like to admit. 

The hooded figure from his dream resurfaced. The sharp-beaked mask that had nothing visible underneath it, and Matt’s voice—he shuddered. 

He glanced at the clock, but there was nothing there. He couldn’t find any clock at all—and he remembered there being a clock in the front of the room. 

Weird. He looked down at his open textbook, and found the text unreadable. The same was true of the notes on the blackboard and his own notes. 

He noticed his arm out of the corner of his eye—his right arm was missing, replaced with an alien prosthetic. 

He screamed. 

* * *

Matt woke up to screaming. This wasn’t particularly unusual—the work camp was full of guards who, with little else to do for entertainment, would torment the slaves. Screams of agony were a common sound, almost as common as whispered words—a rebellion in themselves. The galra had banned communication: no speaking, no drawing, no signing, certainly no singing. Any language other than Galra was strictly forbidden.

Today’s screams were coming not from a hapless prisoner that the guards were tormenting but from his bedmate, caught in the throes of a nightmare. The chamber was dark, and it took Matt a full minute to realize that he wasn’t in the work camp, but on the Castle of Lions. His bedmate, still screaming, was Shiro.

“Shh, Shiro,” he whispered. His voice was hoarse from disuse. “Shh, you’re safe. You’re safe. I’m here. It’s just me. Just Matt. We’re in the Castle of Lions, in our room. Nobody’s going to hurt you. We’re safe.” Shiro had stopped screaming, but his eyes were shut tight and he was still in clear distress, tossing and turning and tangling himself in the sheets. As the sheets restricted his movements, he struggled harder.

Matt knew better than to touch him—Shiro could and would hurt him before he realized who Matt was—but everything in him strained to hold Shiro tight against the universe.

Every cell in his body rebelled at the thought of raising his voice—the learned behaviors of two years of imprisonment were hard to overcome—but Shiro needed him.

“Shiro!” he said, trying to shout. His voice came out only slightly louder than conversational tone. “Shiro, you need to wake up. You’re dreaming, Shiro, wake up!”

If anything, Shiro seemed to worsen. What was he seeing? He was fighting, struggling against the tangled sheets. Matt put a hand gently on Shiro’s shoulder. When Shiro didn’t respond to it, Matt began untangling the sheets as carefully as he could. Shiro was struggling still and Matt didn’t want to touch him more than necessary—the pain in Shiro’s eyes when he realized who he had hurt was worse than any injury Shiro could give him—so it was slow going. All the while, Matt kept a steady stream of quiet chatter. He had been silent for so long he had nearly forgotten how, but once he managed the first words the rest came easier. He narrated what he was doing, talked about anything he could think of, begged Shiro to wake up. It was easier to talk with Shiro asleep, even though he was tossing and turning so much Matt was worried about him getting whiplash from it. Finally Shiro was freed from the sheets.

“Wake up, Takashi!” he snapped. He rarely called Shiro by his first name, but as soon as he said it, Shiro’s eyes opened. He sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Matt?” he asked.

All of his words vanished and his throat closed up. He knew Shiro wouldn’t hurt him, not for something like speaking—Shiro would never intentionally hurt him—but there were some things that he still couldn’t do with people around. A sleeping Shiro was very different from an awake Shiro.

But he looked so confused, and Matt forced the words out. “You were having a nightmare.” Every word felt like a lead weight. Shiro reached out with one hand—and Matt hated how he flinched away, eyes closed, expecting a blow.

A warm hand settled on his cheek. Not a strike, just a gentle touch.

“Can I hug you?” Shiro asked. Matt nodded. Shiro scooted forward on the mattress, wrapping his arms around Matt. Matt leaned into the embrace, burying his face against Shiro’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist, tugging them closer together.

Matt leaned further into their embrace, and they fell back against the pillows together and fell asleep, limbs tangled. No terrors haunted their sleep for the rest of the night. 


End file.
